Tomorrow I travel to the University of Maine at Farmington with ACLU of MAINE staff and Board members for our annual Bill of Rights Education Conference for area high school students.  This is the first in a series of three conferences over the next three weeks -- Farmington, Belfast and Portland -- serving almost six hundred students.  Conference workshops cover First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and Fourteenth Amendment rights.  Among the topics of discussion:  How do we reconcile free speech and anti-discrimination protections?  Is there a Constituti | continue reading

David Fathi, Director of the ACLU's National Prison Project, just landed in Portland.  We're driving north today for the ACLU of MAINE Annual Meeting & Celebration at the University of Maine at Orono Wells Conference Center.  David is a nationally recognized expert on prison reform, and he joins us to honor three recipients of the Roger Baldwin Award for civil liberties activisim -- activist Emily Posner, | continue reading

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A friend of mine chuckled this week when I said I was visiting our Senators' offices this week.  "An exercise in futility," he said.  He had cause to say, "I told you so," when the Senators joined the filibuster of the National Defense Authorization Act this week.  Folks on Facebook, Twitter and blogs expressed outrage and disappointment that our hopes for repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the DREAM Act were yet again deferred.   
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